Friday, March 2, 2007

Ode to The Edge and the Ghost of Doris Palmer

The soap opera over the gay bar, The Edge (11213 Detroit Ave.), has apparently aired its last episode. A few insiders think the ghost of Doris Palmer helped pull the plug.
Last weekend, the club abruptly closed with no warning to its slowly declining number of regulars. But we hear a pair of new owners will tap the beer kegs again this weekend under the bar's new name, Now That's Class, for the straight-punk party crowd. Here's hoping the club won't have the same bad luck of its predecessors since Palmer owned Memoirs in the same space during the '80s and early '90s.
Known to chain-smoke and throw back a steady stream of Skyy shots in her day, the feisty Palmer ran Memoirs with an iron fist. It worked; the business hummed with one of the busiest happy hours on the West Side. When she unloaded the bar and retired to her home in Rocky River, her successors didn't have the same kind of fortune. Under the names Sexx, Deco, and the Edge, owners faced a fraction of the patrons.
On Feb. 17, the seventysomething Palmer died at her winter home in Florida. A few intimates suspect her hard living caught up with her. Those same friends also know that Palmer kept tabs on her former business space. Only the smokes and the Skyy could help contain her rage, they say.
"It seems that the Edge lost its edge long before she passed away. But isn't it spooky that it would close right after she dies?" asks one of her old buddies. "She's as tough in the grave as she was behind the bar." — Cris Glaser